Plastic Rap

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1 • 570 Ratings

🗓️ 27 October 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Plastic waste never really breaks down. It just splits into tinier and tinier pieces until it becomes trillions of microscopic bits scattered across the world. Microplastics are everywhere: In the air we breathe and the water we drink, atop the highest mountains and in the deepest parts of the ocean. Microplastics are even coursing through our bloodstreams and sitting in our digestive systems. It's a problem we have only recently begun to understand, and are still trying to figure out how to solve.

This week on Gadget Lab, Matt Simon, WIRED climate writer and author of the new book A Poison Like No Other, joins us to talk about how microplastics became such a scourge and what—if anything—we can do about it.

Show Notes

Matt’s book A Poison Like No Other: How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies is out now. Read an excerpt of the book on WIRED. You can also find other Matt Simon stories about microplastics and the climate by browsing his author page.

Recommendations

Matt recommends Derry Girls on Netflix. Lauren recommends a plastic or metal water bottle that you can use over and over again. She likes the 32-ounce narrow mouth Nalgene bottle. Mike recommends bringing back Follow Friday on Twitter.

Matt Simon can be found on Twitter @mrMattSimon. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Lauren,
0:00.9	Mike. Lauren, would you care to guess how much plastic is in your digestive system right now? No, I would not care to. Why does it scary to think about it? Yeah, it does. Also, I feel like it's probably unquantifiable. I'll tell you how much plastic is under my kitchen sink right now because a sign of adulthood is that you just collect like 42 plastic bags and stuff them in other plastic bags.
0:21.7	Right. You should stop using those plastic bags. You should just never run out of plastic bags.
0:26.3	Well, eventually they break down and they end up in your body.
0:28.7	This is the scary part. It really is. I have a feeling this is what we're going to talk about on this week's show.
0:33.6	It is what we're going to talk about. So buckle up.
0:45.0	Yeah. show. It is what we're going to talk about. So buckle up. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Killory. I'm a senior editor at Wired. And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior writer at Wired.
0:50.4	We're also joined by Wired Science Writer, Matt Simon. Welcome back, Matt. Thank you. Good to be back to
0:55.8	ruin everything for you, per the usual. Yeah. Our staff doomsday reporter. You are. You are
1:01.7	our resident doomsayer. Matt is one of our climate reporters, and he's always writing stories about
1:06.7	how we're destroying the planet, how our policies are failing us, how we're all going to die
1:11.3	sooner than we think. This time, Matt, you're here because you've written a book that is out this
1:16.8	week. It's called A Poison Like No Other, How Microplastics Corrupted Our Planet and Our Bodies. It's
1:24.8	exactly as cheerful as it sounds. I have to tell you, a lot of you who listen
1:29.6	know that Mike and I are friends outside of this podcast. I have spent holidays with Mike and his
1:34.4	wife. We sometimes go for jogs together. We talk about stuff that you're never going to hear.
1:40.0	But this weekend, we went for a run and like a race. Like we're doing a race.
1:45.5	And Mike is like constantly talking about Matt's book.
1:48.7	Just like, we go for food afterwards and he's like, plastic, plastic, plastic.
1:52.5	Oh, did you know this about plastic?
1:53.7	And do you know that you have plastic in your body right now?
1:55.8	And I was like, Mike, the doomsday.
	...

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